


Kahlua

by Glamourchick1668



Category: Endless Summer (Visual Novel)
Genre: AU-ish?, Homophobia, Other, Strong Language, Underage Drinking, including slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-17 12:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18965311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glamourchick1668/pseuds/Glamourchick1668
Summary: Diego reflects on his adolescence and coming to terms with himself--and the friend who helped him along the way.





	1. Adolescents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NympheSama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NympheSama/gifts).



> So, this was supposed to be a one-shot, but now it's turned into two chapters. Oh, well. Anyway, this is just a little breather for me while I plot out the next couple chapters of Book 4. I've been wanting to write about this episode in Diego and Alodia's history for awhile, and today it just kind of beat me over the head until I started writing it. The second chapter will not be long in coming, I suspect.

Looking back, I don't think puberty was kind to either me, or to my best friend Alodia. I'll maintain forever that Allie never went through an ugly duckling phase like I did, but acne, aching joints, and body hair aside, puberty is always rougher on anyone with a working uterus and ovaries than the be-testicled. It had been my own mother who took Allie shopping for her first bra three years before that summer, when her breasts first started to come in. It made sense. An orphan, placed in the care of a wealthy aunt and uncle as an infant, the task of rearing Allie had largely fallen to her nanny, my mother. That's how we met. Bringing me along to work meant that Mama could save money on daycare, and her charge would have a playmate.

Allie would confess to me years later that her aunt was heartbroken that it had been Mama instead of her buying that first bra, but I know Allie trusted Mama better with that kind of thing. She did let Molly help her through her first period a year later, which was probably a better choice. Molly would speak frankly and not attach any stigma to it. Mama would mean well, but she's too conservative to not to flinch if anyone dares to make mention of “woman's matters” in mixed company. ...Or in open air.

I was scared of Allie's periods at first. Not that I ever saw anything really graphic. Once I did catch sight of a bloody wad of toilet paper in the open trashbasket, probably wrapping up a pad or a tampon, but that hardly traumatized me. I knew that once a month, Allie spent a day foggy, short-tempered, and aching with cramps, and of course I knew the reason. It scared me to see her in pain, but only a little. She popped a couple of pills a few times throughout the day, and soldiered on, and was usually feeling better by the next day. What really scared me was that her periods meant she was growing up. And if she was growing up, then I was growing up. She was Becoming a Woman and I was Becoming a Man, and that inevitably meant one of two things: either we would fall madly in love, or we would go our separate ways. I had seen it happen to my older cousins and others in my close-knit Mexican-American neighboorhood as soon as they reached that age where voices and bodies changed. Anyone who was perceived as being too close with someone of the opposite sex faced scrutiny from the community's elders. The girls especially were lectured on modesty and virtue, and the older women watched them like hawks, ready to strike at the first hint of promiscuity.

As a boy, I did have a little more freedom. Parents were more concerned with protecting their daughters from me and the other boys than they were with curbing the aggression that they assumed was a natural part of being male. But I still did get a few passing remarks in those early days, and overheard enough of the murmured conversations between Mama and the other women to know what they were thinking of my close friendship with Allie. They didn't think my parents should allow it to continue. Had Mama spoken to her family? Just think what shame they would suffer if I got Allie pregnant. Her poor _Tia,_ who had raised her unfortunate sister's only child from infancy.

I think a part of me always knew how much it hurt Mama to hear that from her family and neighbors, since they all knew that  _she_ had provided the majority of Allie's care during her life, raising her like a daughter alongside me. It did give me a measure of comfort to think that Mama and Papa knew the Allie and I had been raised as sister and brother, and assumed that was the only way we could see each other. Still, the comments of the adult women—and soon the men, too—when they thought I wasn't listening were enough for weeds of fear to put down roots and grow enough to choke that hope. 

Allie wasn't exactly the modest, deferrant, domestic woman most believed would make the best wife.  She was outspoken. She picked fights with the boys. She liked to show off her body with dance and gymnastics. And when she did get some quiet time, she preferred reading about history to cooking and sewing. Besides that, she was white. She wasn't Catholic. Her family was wealthy, which they speculated was why she didn't see the need to cook and clean herself, since she had servants to do everything for her. That wasn't actually the case, at least not to the extent the neighbors thought. They said enough for me to know they were picturing something out of  _Downton Abbey_ , with butlers and ladies' maids and all. The reality was one housekeeper and one chef who came every other day, and Mama to look after their niece. The chef and the housekeeper probably wouldn't have been needed if the Fishers didn't work such long hours, and they actually made Mama's job easier by letting her leave a few messes here and there, and ensuring she didn't have to think about what to feed us since the chef would have usually left some meals ready to heat and serve in the fridge. Still, try explaining that to my neighbors and extended family. No one was living below the poverty line in my neighboorhood, but we were working class families, scrimping and pinching to make ends meet while wealth and privilege dwelled within the same county lines. 

No one in my neighboorhood thought Allie a truly suitable partner for me. But when I thought about the consequences of me and my best friend joining the ranks of Man and Woman, the idea that we would go our separate ways was unbearable. So for some time, I tried to fall in love with her. My efforts turned out to be the first steps toward discovering a truth I would try to deny for much too long. 

Allie was beautiful. Everyone said so, even the neighborhood women who shook their heads at her. Heck, I thought so, too. I could appreciate the beauty in her large blue eyes, framed by long, pale eyelashes and set deep in a ivory, heart-shaped face. I was actually kind of fascinated by her pink rosebud mouth and the tiny dimple that appeared in her left cheek when she smiled. I liked to watch her brush her hair into a silky curtain of golden-yellow threads flowing past her shoulders. She would remain small and svelte into adulthood, but her narrow limbs were sinewy and graceful from her athletic endeavors. I liked to watch her flipping and spinning and leaping and admired the way she seemed to fly so effortlessly. 

I loved her. I knew I did. I had loved her my whole life. But the sight of her never filled me with desire. When she did well at gymnastics competitions, I would rush onto the mat as soon as I was allowed and sweep her into a hug while she was still damp with sweat and high with adrenaline. I would feel her growing breasts through the thin fabric of her leotard, heaving with exertion against my chest, and I would gradually start to worry about the fact that those moments didn't make me think about kissing her. We went to school dances together and awkwardly shuffled through slow dances, rocking from side to side with her hands on my shoulders and mine barely touching her waist. I told myself it was just nerves that made us act like strangers during these dances, when only an hour before we had thrown our arms over each other's shoulders and made bunny ears on each other for the camera. It wouldn't be until I had at least somewhat realized the truth that I would look back and accept that the tight smiles between us, the way we avoided each other's eyes and left enough room for the Holy Spirit and Jesus to do the charleston, weren't due to attraction, but a lack thereof. 

By the time I had actually worked up the courage to try kissing her, I had come to realize that neither my family nor hers were going to force us to stop being friends. A deeper fear was starting to take hold now. Evidence was starting to pile up that I was an “other” of a sort that went beyond my socioeconomic class, the color of my skin, or the fact that I spoke Spanish at home. A sort of “other” that would make me unwelcome in my own neighborhood. When I was fourteen, all my efforts to fall in love with my best friend were now about proving my fears wrong. I tried to imagine her naked and get myself hard off the image. I tried to go the romantic route and pictured us as two telenovela leads passionately declaring our love. When we went swimming that summer, I looked at her bikini clad body and tried to imagine making love to it. On Friday nights after high school started, we'd go back to her place and order pizza and spend the night in the den watching TV. When we'd curl up together on the big sectional sofa, I tried to want to slip my hand under her shirt. I don't think I would have actually done it, even if I were sexually attracted to her, but I tried desperately to want it. And then finally, at the Winter Formal, while we shuffled awkwardly through another slow dance, I plucked up my courage and kissed her. 

Well, I say kissed, but I don't know if you could actually call it that. I kinda just leaned in and puckered up and mooshed my lips on hers for maybe three seconds before I pulled back. Exactly what happened immediately afterward is a memory that I have thankfully repressed, but Allie avoided me for nearly a week afterward. I'll give her credit, she wasn't cold or impolite when I tried to engage her in conversation, but she didn't hug me or ruffle my hair or joke with me. At lunch, she didn't try to sit at a different table, but she kept a few seats between us, and mostly talked to other people. It was the loneliest, most difficult and exhausting week of my entire high school experience. I went home alone in the evening and tried to put on a smile for my parents before retreating to my room to do homework. I couldn't concentrate on studying, and I would eventually just collapse in my bed and surrender to the helpless tears before falling asleep in my clothes. 

Strangely, my ordeal ended with a word that would haunt the rest of my high school days. Allie and I had the same P.E class that year, with a teacher who didn't seem all that interested in forcing us to do team sports or fitness tests. He usually just brought out a crate of basketballs and soccerballs and pulled down some gym mats and let us work out how we wanted to while he sat on a chair in the corner and flipped through a magazine. I spent most of the year's P.E time walking laps around the gymnasium and telling myself stories while Allie rehearsed her routines. This particular afternoon, I was trying not to watch her practice her moves while I did my laps. Between my active effort not to look at her and the story I was weaving in my head, I wasn't really paying attention to my surroundings at all until a basketball beaned me in the head. 

“Watch out, faggot!” 

The word, shouted in an adolescent boy's breaking tenor voice, fell like a blow that froze my blood. I stopped in my tracks, my eyes snapping in the direction of the sound, to find a small cluster of my male classmates snickering under the basketball hoop. Before I could work out which one of them had spoken, a tall, lanky guy with a mop of blond curls yelped as a volleyball connected with his head. 

“Say that again, asshole!” Allie's voice cracked like a whip through the gymnasium, which went silent as she stormed up to the guy with a face like thunder. She was barely up to his chest, but there is something about a hundred-pound blonde girl coming at you with murder in her eyes that's a little unsettling even if you are sure you could take her on. The guy took a couple steps back. 

“Sorry, is he yours?” he sneered, and his buddies snickered, but Allie didn't back down. She shoved his chest challengingly. 

“I said say it again, asshole! Come on, coward! I dare you! Call him a faggot again and see how that ends for you!” 

The shriek of the teacher's whistle ripped through the air, distracting everyone long enough for him to get in between Allie and her target. 

“All right, Chandler, cool it!” he snapped. “Dzugan, I'm giving you one warning about your language, got it? Soto, come here!” 

Still reeling and bewildered, I stepped up to the teacher, who instructed Dzugan to apologize, which he grudgingly did. I managed to mumble my forgiveness and shook his hand when prompted. Satisfied that the situation was resolved, he stepped away, clearly eager to return to his magazine. But apparently, Allie wasn't quite finished. She folded her arms, scowling at the tall boy. 

“Open your filthy mouth on my friend again, you're answering to me, Dzugan!” she growled. 

“Back to it, Chandler!” the teacher called warningly over his shoulder. Allie rolled her eyes. 

“Yes, sir!” 

The small crowd that had gathered around us started to disperse. I met Allie's eyes and mouthed a thank you. She grinned and threw me a wink before tossing her hair and heading back to her mat. And just like that, things were right between us again. We never really discussed the kissing incident, except to confirm that neither of us wanted to be a couple. We didn't really need to. There was an understanding between us that didn't really require words. 

I think Allie realized the truth I was hiding before I had fully admitted it to myself. 

 


	2. I Promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter! In which I give a very vague preview of events upcoming in Book 4 for anyone who is caught up with it. (No spoilers. Promise.)
> 
> If anyone wants me to write more stories set in Diego and Alodia's past, I do have a list of other episodes which could be fun--for example, the one where they meet Rebecca McKenzie. Heck, I could open this up and just add episodes as I am inspired...

The summer we were fifteen, it was common for me and Allie to be left to our own devices. Her aunt and uncle were frequently away at conventions or romantic vacations, and usually they trusted my parents to keep an eye on us. Of course, that was also the summer Abuelita was diagnosed with cancer.

She was characteristically Mexican about the whole thing, open and honest and almost casual about the prospect of death. She didn't want treatment. She was old, and ready to meet her Lord, as she put it. But she wanted to die in Mexico. Where she was from. So, when she had said her goodbyes to me and Papa and Allie and my various cousins, Mama took her to the airport. When Mama returned just before Christmas, she returned alone.

Through that hot California summer, Abuelita was on my mind a lot. But she wasn't the only thing on my mind. There was a lot I was scared of that summer.

My efforts to fall in love, either with Allie or with another girl had mostly come to nothing. I couldn't bring myself to feel desire for any girl. But I was not entirely without desire at all, and that was almost worse. I had begun to dream about someone, a handsome senior who got the lead in every play and who played in a punk band on the weekends. It started off that he just appeared in my dreams at night like anyone else at school might, as a background or a side character in whatever strangeness my mind was inventing. But gradually, those dreams became more romantic. Then, last week of the school year, I had stood in the hallway one afternoon, gathering my things from my locker, and watched him making out with his girlfriend. Before I quite realized what was happening, I was imagining what it would be like to be in that girl's place, having his broad hands spanning my hips, tasting his tongue in my mouth.

I couldn't see yet that I was just a normal, healthy teenage boy. I couldn't even have rubbed one out to an image of a naked woman without feeling like I deserved to have my hand cut off. But to be tugging it with that handsome senior boy's face and body dancing in my head? Every week, I went to Mass and prayed to be set free, but only left feeling filthier. I couldn't tell anyone what I was feeling. Allie was the only person I actually felt safe around, and I clung to her like a lifetime, even though sometimes she scared me, too. But even then, even as much as I was content just to be her sidekick, I could see that she needed me, too.

Things weren't going well for her at home. She was fighting viciously with her aunt and uncle—her uncle especially. Helpless with the knowledge that she was the child they had never wanted, she turned her pain to rage. Throughout our troubled teenage years, Allie would cement herself as the rebellious one, the troublemaker. She was the one who talked back, who swore at authority figures, who threw volleyballs at jerks who called me names, and sometimes fought with them after school. I was the 'good' one, the quiet kid who followed the rules and disappeared into my room as soon as I got home, keeping all my angst hidden behind notebooks full of bad poetry. But there would be plenty of times when she drew me into her hijinks. She was the one who convinced me to sneak out after midnight and smoke weed with her in an orange grove. But that incident was still six months off on this particular day.

Unsurprisingly, we spent most of our free time that summer at her place. Besides being bigger, fancier, and with more of the latest gadgets, her aunt and uncle being gone so often meant we had a lot more freedom.

It was pretty common that summer for us to not leave the grounds surrounding her aunt and uncle's house for days. Neither of us could drive yet, and there wasn't a lot to do in the immediate vicinity. Sometimes, one of the other wealthy teenagers in the area would throw a lavish party but whether she was invited was hit or miss, and I was never invited. Sometimes, she could get them to let me in. Sometimes, invitations weren't required. On all other occasions, we kept to ourselves. When she had dance or gymnastics, she biked or bussed, and I usually went with her.

This particular July day, we were looking at three full days without any of her practices or classes to go to, and with her aunt and uncle away again, we were ready to take full advantage. I got permission from Papa to stay at Allie's for the next couple days, packed a backpack, and left the house before noon. I caught two buses to get from Ramona to Hawarden Hills, and then rode my bike to Alessandro Heights, travelling from my tightly-packed neighborhood to her exclusive community. It took a little longer, waiting for buses instead of just biking straight there, but I wasn't an athlete under the best of circumstances, and growing pains made a seven-mile bike ride an impossibility.

The front gate was unlocked when I reached her house. I walked my bike up the long pathway and the steps to her front door. I wound my bike cable lock through the frame and around a pillar on the porch. Allie had told me more than once that I didn't actually have to lock up my bike since her front porch was so far from the street that no one would even see it, but I have to think that was one of the few ways our difference in class made itself known. Her family wouldn't feel the cost of a bicycle like mine would.

She'd left the front doors open, and through the glass storm doors, I could hear Rihanna's “Disturbia” blasting inside. On a hunch, I tested the storm doors and found them unlocked. Slightly unnerved, I twisted the lock behind me and closed the front doors for good measure.

“Allie?” I called. I followed the sound of the music and found Allie in her aunt and uncle's home gym. Half of the sprawling room was Allie's own personal dance studio, with a wood floor, mirrors, barre, and sound system. She was in a unitard and bare feet, her hair swept back in a ponytail, doing the exercise she called “isolations,” rolling and warming every joint in turn. She grinned at me, nodding in acknowledgment as she flexed her middle spine and swiveled her ribcage in slow, smooth circles.

“I won't be long!” she called over the music. I sighed, making my way to the stereo to turn the volume down just enough that we could hear ourselves.

“Allie, you left your front door unlocked and wide open again!” I chided as she reversed the direction of her rib-circles.

“Yeah. I knew you were coming, but I didn't know when you'd get here.” She paused for a breath, bent her knees, and put her hands on her hips, rocking her pelvis front to back. “I trust you to let yourself in.”

“And what if it was someone else trying to let themself in? Some psycho serial killer?”

“In Alessandro Heights?”

“Psycho serial killers can be anywhere,” I reminded her firmly. She switched to rocking her pelvis side to side, and I continued. “It's one thing to leave the gate unlocked for me, but couldn't you just leave me a key under the welcome mat or something, rather than just leaving everything wide open like an invitation? I don't want to come in here one day and find someone eating your skin to a Rihanna soundtrack!”

She snorted, but there was affection in the sidelong glance she passed to me as she moved into rhythmic pliés. “Worrywort.” As she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, she turned her gaze back on the mirror and started to sing along with the music. “ _Put on your brake lights, we're in the city of wonder...”_

Her voice was tuneless and wobbly, and it was my turn to snort. “Stop singing, Allie.”

“What, you don't like my voice?”

“ _Te quiero mucho, mi amiga._ But you can't carry a tune in a bucket. You've got rhythm, but no music.”

“Haven't got 'my man,' either,” she quipped ruefully. I felt a twinge of anxiety in my stomach, and when I answered, there was a flutter in my voice.

“I don't exactly have 'my gal,' either.” I swallowed, forcing an easy smile. “Or rhythm. Or music. So, I shouldn't talk, and you shouldn't feel bad. But do stop singing.”

She paused, stealing a glance at me. For a moment, she seemed to be searching me for something. Then her expression shifted to a smile and she bounced over to turn off the music, taking my hand.

“I'm starving. Time to raid the kitchen.”

* * *

We gorged ourselves on the packed lunches and treats left by the chef the day before. When we'd eaten our fill, we waddled into the rec room to veg it off in front of the TV. When the calories began to turn into energy, we began to hear the siren's call of the summer sunlight and the pool outside. But as I stood up, Allie stretched out on her back on the sectional, groaning a little.

“I feel like I'm still rocking a food baby. Not sure I want to get in a swimsuit.”

I snorted. “Allie, even with a food baby, you have a disgustingly perfect body. Besides, I'm the only one around to see you.”

“And what if my really hot neighbor sees us through a pair of binoculars?”

“Uh...then he's creepy, and a food baby is the least of your worries?”

“Hey, maybe he was just planning on bird watching!”

I laughed, offering her my hands. “Come on. I'll give you a hand up.”

I dragged her to her feet, and we headed upstairs to change, she in her room and me in the guest bathroom. We grabbed towels and sunscreen, opting to lather up in the rec room, where the French doors opened onto the pool . It was while I was rubbing the greasy lotion into my arms that I noticed Allie frowning. Her gaze was turned in the direction of the door to the dining room, which was standing open.

“Allie? What's the matter?”

She didn't answer me immediately, but walked over to the dining room, peering inside. Curious, I followed her. She lingered in the doorway, but pointed to the thing that had caught her eye.

“Look. Uncle Rob left the key in the liquor cabinet.”

Sure enough, the copper-colored head of a small key winked in the lock on the mahogany wall unit, reflecting the rays of the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the skylights.

“Huh...think he meant to do that?”

“Not likely. He always keeps it hidden in one of Aunt Molly's Russian nesting dolls.” She nodded at the small collection of nesting dolls lined up largest to smallest in one of the wall unit's glass display cabinets. “It's usually in the second-smallest of the fairy tale ones.”

“Doesn't seem like a very good hiding place if you've already figured it out.”

She grinned. “Not that he knows, of course. But yeah, I figured it out a couple years ago. I just wanted to get a closer look at the dolls. I wasn't expecting one to rattle when I picked it up.”

“So...should we put it back?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. But let's not worry about it now. Let's go swimming.”

* * *

The sun was still up by the time we climbed out of the pool, but hunger had begun to bite again in earnest. We toweled off, hurried to change into dry clothes, and brought another pile of food from the kitchen into the dining room. Sated again, we sat back, gazing at the remains of our feast as we contemplated what to do next. Allie's gaze strayed to the liquor cabinet again.

“I should put that key back...” she sighed. “If I don't, Uncle Rob will probably assume I found his hiding place.”

“You did find his hiding place,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but I don't want him to know that.”

She stood up and walked over to the wall unit. But instead of pulling the key out, she turned it in the lock, letting the liquor cabinet fall open and reveal a reflective interior filled with decanters and an assortment of bottles.

“Allie...? What are you doing?”

“Just looking,” she assured me. “No harm in looking. Got some pretty fancy stuff in here. At least, I think so, based on some of the labels.”

A part of me wanted to get up and peruse her uncle's booze collection with her, to gaze at fancy bottles of wine and spirits and pretend I knew something about them. Another part of me thought I probably shouldn't be encouraging Allie to be shuffling though the bottles instead of putting the key back in its hiding place. I compromised, saying nothing right off and dipping another cracker in the spinach dip to stuff into my mouth.

“Oooh, look at this!” I heard a couple bottles clinking together and she came up with a dark bottle with a yellow label. “Kahlua!”

“Ahh, a Mexican drink,” I said as if I knew anything about it at all. “Good taste.”

She laughed. “You know that for a fact, do you?” Before I quite realized what was happening, she had opened the bottle and taken a swig.

“Allie!” I yelped. “What are you doing?!”

She swallowed the mouthful. “Only tasting.” She smacked her lips experimentally. “Mmm, not bad.”

I had heard to soft crack of the seal breaking. That was a fresh bottle, previously unopened. If her uncle remembered that, Allie would be in for it, and that made me very nervous. But I was curious in spite of myself. “Yeah? What's it taste like?”

“Like really sweet coffee. A little burny...but in a good way.” She tipped the bottle toward me. “Want to try some?”

“Well...I...”

She tipped the bottle back, moving to close it, and smiled reassuringly. “You don't have to. No pressure.”

But I wanted to. I wanted to do something rebellious and forbidden. I held out my hand. “Ahh, why not? Not like one swallow can really hurt, right?”

Predictably, it didn't stop at one swallow. Between us, we finished the bottle.

 

* * *

 

“....Ohhhh...my God...this feels so weird...” On her back on her bed, gazing up at the ceiling, Allie giggled out her words. I snorted, blinking. I shook my head, marveling at the way the room took a few seconds to catch up.

“Yeah, it does. I feel...floaty...”

“I definitely see why people do this. It feels so weird.”

I let out a sound halfway between a giggle and a hiccup. “I'm pretty slure you slaid that already.”

She lifted her arm, pointing to the ceiling with her index finger. “I...did... _not._ I will not abide tha'kinduv...sssslander...knave...” She let her hand flop back down to her side and blinked. “...My tongue feels heavy.”

“Mine...too...” I opened my mouth and waggled my tongue as if I were licking an ice cream cone. “Ahlalala...” Of course, this made her laugh again.

“Dee'go, are we doin' thissrite?”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Aren't we s'posed to be all wise and philsof...phillisofi...phil...sophical?”

I shook my head. “No, we're drunk. We gotta be high to get all wise and philiosoppic.”

“Ohh, right...drinky-drunk is where we get all, 'I love you, man!'” She reached up to pat my shoulder. “An' I do. I do love you, man. Yer my bess friend.”

I grinned and laid down beside her, snuggling close. “I love you, too, man. ...Ma'am. ...Wo-man?” I'm not sure how the next moment actually ended up happening. I guess drink just loosened my tongue, but I can't for the life of me recall what inebriated thought processes actually led me to just suddenly blurt out, “Allie, I'm gay.”

As the weight of my confession came crashing down on me, I immediately burst into tears. I was in the icy grip of pure animal terror. I had said it. I had said the words for the first time, and I had said them to my best friend, to the one person I knew I couldn't bear to lose. Loud, clumsy, gulping sobs tore out of my chest as I curled into her, my nose and eyes leaking fluid. At some point, I started to retch and heave. Allie dragged us both upright, and we managed to stagger into the bathroom. I fell to my knees and pushed up the toilet seat just in time. I puked up my guts while Allie gently rubbed my back, heedless of the sweat soaking through my T-shirt. Finally, I seemed to be finished puking, and we hobbled back into the bedroom, leaning on each other. My sobs had died down by then, and when we climbed back onto the bed, I curled up with my head on her lap, sniffling pathetically as I tried to blot my eyes and nose dry with the washcloth she had handed me. She stroked my damp hair tenderly, but her silence was growing unbearable.

“Allie...?” I croaked. “...Say something...please.”

After another moment, she said softly, “...If you were gay...” I craned my neck to look up at her. I didn't realize what she was doing until she looked down at me with a shit-eating grin and added, “Doodleoodleoodleoodleoo...”

I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “Oh, god...”

“...That'd be okay. Doodleoodleoodleoodleoo. I mean 'cause hey! I like you an-y-way!”

Behind my hands, I smiled in spite of myself. “...Yeah?”

She continued, hopelessly out of tune. “Because you see, Doodleoodleoodleoodleoo, if it were meeeeeeeeeee! I would feel free to say that I was gay – But I'm not gay!”

I took my hands away from my face. I was smiling, feeling a little easier. “...Okay...”

But she wasn't done yet. “If you were queer...”

“Okay, I get it.”

“I'd still be here!”

“Allie, that's enough.”

“Year after yeeeeeeeeeeear! Because you're dear to me!”

“Enough!”

“And I know that you--” I grabbed a throw pillow and swung it lazily behind me in the general direction of her face. I heard a soft paff as it connected, but it didn't deter her. “--would accept me tooooooooo!”

“Allie, you can't sing!”

“If I told you to-day, 'hey, guess what, I'm gay'!--But I'm not gay!”

By this point, she was hooking her arms under mine and lifting me off the bed. Before I quite knew what was happening, we were both on our feet and she was poised behind me, holding my wrists and waving my arms as if I were a doll she was dancing with.

“I'm happyyyyyy, just being with yooooooooou! So what should it matter to me what you do in bed with guys?!” She was belting the lyrics by now, and when she thrust her hips commically against my butt, and I lost it. I dissolved into a fit of giggles as she turned me around and posed with me in a waltz position. “Iiiiiiiiif yooooooooou weeeeeeere gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!”

“Oh my god, Allie!”

“--I'd shout, 'Hooray!'”

“You're gonna make me puke again!”

“And here I'd staaaaaaaaay! But I wouldn't get in your way! You can count on meeeeeeeeeee, to always beeeeeeeeee, beside you EV'-RY-DAY! To tell you IT'S OKAY! You were just BORN THAT WAY! And as they say, it's in your DNA! You're gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!”

I threw back my head and yelled as loud as I could manage, “I _AM_ GAY!”

“HOORAY!” Allie shrieked, wrapping me in a hug. Unfortunately, we were both still drunk, and we ended up tumbling onto the bed. The laughter gradually died away, and for a long moment, we were quiet again, long enough for dread to settle in the pit of my stomach again.

“...Allie?”

“Yeah?”

“...I'm scared.”

She turned to look at me. “Of your parents finding out? Of what they'll say?”

“Yeah. And...of hell.”

“Hey. None of that.” She rolled toward me and draped an arm over me. “You're not going to hell.”

“I'm an abomination. Everyone says so.”

“And who's everyone? _I_ don't say so. I don't even _think_ it. So girls don't make you horny and guys do. So what?”

“It's...not _natural._ ”

“Is that what you actually believe, Diego? Really deep down believe? Or do you just think it has to be true because that's what your Church tells you?”

“...I don't know. ...I've been reading arguments online a lot, both for and against...” I trailed off. My brain was still too hazy to wrap my mind around the countless points in countless debates I had read over the past few months.

“But what do _you_ think, Diego? What do you feel?”

“That...I feel that...I didn't just wake up and decide that I liked guys. That...I don't think I've done anything bad because I haven't done anything at all. ...That...I don't understand why God would care so much about what people do with their own bodies as long as we're not hurting anyone. ...That this is probably something that isn't going to change in me no matter what I do. ...That I'm tired of being scared of it.”

“It's nothing to be scared of. That people might be jerks about it, that's definitely scary. But you know I'll fight anyone you need me to.”

I laughed and ruffled her hair. “At some point, you're gonna have to accept that you're a tiny, skinny blonde girl. Whaddya do when some great big football player comes after me.”

“I _bite_ him. Because I'm a tiny blonde pomperanium.”

“...You're a what?”

“You know, those tiny yippy-yappy dogs.”

“...Pomeranian?”

“Right! Those!” She rolled upright onto her hands and knees, and bared her teeth in an imitation of a dog's growl. When I grinned, she yipped and yapped, letting her tongue loll out of her mouth.

“Down, girl!”

She obediently laid back down. “Do I get a treat now?”

“That would mean getting up and going to the kitchen, so...no. But I'll give you praise.” I patted her head. “Good girl.”

She smiled. “And you're a good boy. ...And any god who would send you to hell isn't one I want anything to do with.”

“...I'm still scared of what my parents will say.”

“Well...you don't have to tell them right away. I won't tell anyone, either. Not until you're ready.” She took my hand and squeezed it. “Everything's gonna be okay. I promise.”

“Thanks.”

“...Hey, Diego?”

“Yeah?”

“...I think I might have to puke.”

 

* * *

 

The hangover from our little adventure lasted two miserable days. I would go home at the end of it feeling well enough to pass for normal and Papa was none the wiser. A week later, Allie would show up on my doorstep one evening with an angry bruise shadowing one cheek, and would claim that she had been caught stealing from her uncle's wallet. It was the only time in her life he ever raised a hand to her, and I wouldn't learn until years later that it was actually because he had discovered the kahlua was missing. About six months after I came out to her, Allie would admit to me that she wasn't totally straight, either. That she liked boys, but she liked girls, too. When my coming out to my family went badly, hers welcomed me in without question.

These are the memories I find myself returning to now as I clutch her hand in the dark and the damp, whispering vaguely comforting words when the pain makes her whimper, just praying that someone will reach us in time to save her.

In one timeline, those memories weren't actually memories. They were stories that a lonely kid told himself to ease the ache. Since before he could make letters, he had told stories of his beautiful rich friend who lived in a big, fancy house, but who came with him everywhere. As he grew, he filled in the details of her life. He gave her a name, Alodia, the most beautiful name he could find in his mother's book of saints and martyrs. He filled notebook after notebook with stories of his adventures with the wealthy orphan girl. She was brave and kind. She generously shared all that was hers, and she protected him from everything that hurt him, while giving him courage to try everything that scared him. She was also lonely like he was, and needed his love as much as he needed hers.

Those old notebooks don't exist anymore. They never existed, because the stories that lonely boy told himself aren't just stories anymore. I grew up with Alodia by my side. My best friend, my sister, my rock. That's the only reality that matters anymore. She's never been the paragon of perfection that the other me told stories about, but she is real. And that's even better.

I still need her. She still needs me, now more than ever. And it's not just the two of us anymore. There's a whole family ready to fight the world for any one of our number. I know my duty now. I won't let her down.

“Hold on, Allie. They're coming for us. Everything's gonna be okay. I promise.”

 

 

  
  


 

 

 

 


End file.
